The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1887-04-02


lowsh red hue, often covered with tobacco
| Juice as was the front OF his brown do
nestle shirt that fastened at the neck with
| a large horn button, but left great gap
| ing space of eight or ten inches below, dis
| playing his hairy breast. He wore pair
| of brown jeans pants held up by one, some
times two, "gallouris" made of striped
bed-ticking, and in any thing like mid
weather had on neither coat nor vest On
his head was the remnant of a coarse wool
| hat his pants invariably short, failed when
he was sitting to meet the tops OF his blue
wooden socks and the interval thus left
was uncovered by underwear; on his feet,
summer and winter, were coars, brogan
| shoes, IN size about number eleven.
In the eyes of Brown any man who wore
any thing finer than Kentucky jeans was
| proud, and every woman stuck up, who OF
! Sundays, donncd any thing save sun
bonnet.
Brown believed he was just as good as any
body, but fearing others would not think so,
took occasion every now and then to asser,
the fact
He probably never missed meal of
victuals in his life on account of sickness,
but when accosted with the usual "Howdy
do, Brown" invariably answered, "only
toHJk." HIS family consisted of a hearty
wife and some half-dozen healthy children,
but he never would conccde their healthy
status, and when asked regarding their
health always answered with some quail
fled phrase as: "Purty pcart considering"
'all stirln' when | left" SOS to be
round" "all about now" "only tohble
like" "all a'rgc but the old woman, She 5
powerful weak" list middlin'," etc, etc.
But once seated IN your house and hav-
ing satisfactorily compromised the health
! OF himself and family, Brown lost no fur
Their time, but at once b'gan unloading his
latest batch of war news.
"Han't heered bout the big fight on
the 'TcniSy | recon: That Gir'rl that hope
(helped) the gunboats take them air forts
down thar, whar they kctched so many
sojcrs-Donels'n and Hcnery, b'lieve they
call 'em | fergit his Nance yes: Cra"t.
Well, he's got whipped mighty bad, him
and his army-got his all cut up and lots
Of 'em took prisncr.
"Some's sayin' they recon he must a ben
IN ticker to git whipped that away.
"They fit two whole days, and if it hadn't
ben for them air gunboats helpin', him and
his whole army ben tuck prisner, shore.
! They are sayn': Pears like Grants aw-
full lucky gittn' hope from gunboats.'
"The first time he fit at n place called
Bell sumthin' (BclmonD, they got him out,
then they done most of the fghtin At
| Henerv, and I reckon lots of it at Donels'n,
and this last time they saved his bacon,
shore. Pom my soul, b'lieve the South's
| goin' TO gain, though
| Not long after Shiloh Island No 10, in
the Mississippi, with goodly number OF
prisoners surrendered 10 General Pope.
This in the West was at the time taken
| as sort of Offset In our failure at Pitts
| burg Landing, or Shiloh.
Early that spring the writer remembers
| reading Of the now world-renOwned en-
| gagement between the little National Mon
itor and the huge Confederate iron clad
| Merrimac. This engagement in Hampton
Roads revolutionized naval warfare and
forever done away with unarmored wooden
vessels.
The name Monitor, which was afterwards
used in a generic sense and applied TO all
vessels built after the same general pat
! tern of the one which so successfully en-
countered the Merrimac, at first SOUNDED!
strangely, but BY and by became famil-
lar enough.